Harry Potter/Draco & Hermione (004 Hate)
Title: Dead
Rating: PG
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Draco Malfoy (to Hermione Granger)
Author's Notes: Second letter; Draco’s responds. I own nothing!
Dear Granger,
I have to say, upon receiving your letter, I was surprised. It may be hard for you to believe this, but I haven’t had the pleasure of participating in the written correspondence in years. (Well, maybe it’s not so hard for you to believe…I mean, do people actually think I’m dead? That’s rather depressing, I must say.)
Anyway, as I was saying, I was surprised that you wrote me. My first reaction was to simply toss the folded up piece of parchment into the nearest trashcan, but somehow I could not bring myself to do this. I let it fester on my desk for a while, a day or two, before I found the nerve to open it. Honestly, I did not have slightest clue of what you could possibly have to say to me.
I…Granger, I wish you knew how many times I’ve tried to think of what to say. I’ve come to the realization that I have nothing to say. I wish I could spill it all out and articulate what happened that night I freed you…but I simply can’t. As you said yourself, you’ve tried to put the war behind you, and I’ve been trying to do the same, except it hasn’t been as easy for me as it has probably been for you; I was never decorated with medals and my face was never plastered over every newspaper this side of England-scratch that-this side of the world for being a hero, for being Potter’s flunky. I spent two years in Azkaban, even after I negotiated to work with the ministry to give them all of the information I knew concerning the surviving death eaters, and then I was shipped off to France like a damned piece of cargo to finish my sentence in Le château d'Agitation-oh, you’ve probably never heard of it-it’s a nice little prison in the South of France where men go crazy from just the stench of the place and the small space of the cells. Quite lovely, actually.
I’ve spent the last few years of my freedom and what’s left of my life trying to forget everything that ever happened to me before the day I was freed. Every facet of the past-Hogwarts, Voldemort, even “saving” you-is dead and in the dust to me. I cannot go back, and I will not go back. Me sending your locket had nothing to do with sentimentality or me trying to contact you; it was me cleaning up this wretched house I call a home and still attempting to eradicate the past because I want it gone-and you should do. Obviously, we are simply not the same people anymore. You, from the contents of your letter, have turned into someone who has grown into herself so much that she can recognize her faults, and I have grown into a man full of hate, justifiable hate. I’m sorry Granger if this isn’t what you were hoping for, but this is what you have discovered. You said you needed closure, but closure isn’t going to happen through revisiting what happened all those years ago. Closure is going to happen through you saying “to hell with it all!” and forgetting that I even exist, since apparently, to the world, I am dead anyway.
--Draco Malfoy
Rating: PG
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Draco Malfoy (to Hermione Granger)
Author's Notes: Second letter; Draco’s responds. I own nothing!
Dear Granger,
I have to say, upon receiving your letter, I was surprised. It may be hard for you to believe this, but I haven’t had the pleasure of participating in the written correspondence in years. (Well, maybe it’s not so hard for you to believe…I mean, do people actually think I’m dead? That’s rather depressing, I must say.)
Anyway, as I was saying, I was surprised that you wrote me. My first reaction was to simply toss the folded up piece of parchment into the nearest trashcan, but somehow I could not bring myself to do this. I let it fester on my desk for a while, a day or two, before I found the nerve to open it. Honestly, I did not have slightest clue of what you could possibly have to say to me.
I…Granger, I wish you knew how many times I’ve tried to think of what to say. I’ve come to the realization that I have nothing to say. I wish I could spill it all out and articulate what happened that night I freed you…but I simply can’t. As you said yourself, you’ve tried to put the war behind you, and I’ve been trying to do the same, except it hasn’t been as easy for me as it has probably been for you; I was never decorated with medals and my face was never plastered over every newspaper this side of England-scratch that-this side of the world for being a hero, for being Potter’s flunky. I spent two years in Azkaban, even after I negotiated to work with the ministry to give them all of the information I knew concerning the surviving death eaters, and then I was shipped off to France like a damned piece of cargo to finish my sentence in Le château d'Agitation-oh, you’ve probably never heard of it-it’s a nice little prison in the South of France where men go crazy from just the stench of the place and the small space of the cells. Quite lovely, actually.
I’ve spent the last few years of my freedom and what’s left of my life trying to forget everything that ever happened to me before the day I was freed. Every facet of the past-Hogwarts, Voldemort, even “saving” you-is dead and in the dust to me. I cannot go back, and I will not go back. Me sending your locket had nothing to do with sentimentality or me trying to contact you; it was me cleaning up this wretched house I call a home and still attempting to eradicate the past because I want it gone-and you should do. Obviously, we are simply not the same people anymore. You, from the contents of your letter, have turned into someone who has grown into herself so much that she can recognize her faults, and I have grown into a man full of hate, justifiable hate. I’m sorry Granger if this isn’t what you were hoping for, but this is what you have discovered. You said you needed closure, but closure isn’t going to happen through revisiting what happened all those years ago. Closure is going to happen through you saying “to hell with it all!” and forgetting that I even exist, since apparently, to the world, I am dead anyway.
--Draco Malfoy